Since the
down fall of the Median Empire, and murder of Atyagas ca 550 BC (Arshtivaiga; 553
- 550 B.C.), on the hands of Harpagus, his courtier who betrayed him, or as a
result of a defeat on the battle ground on the hands of his grandson Cyrus (Korush
Bozorg) (1), the Medes (Kurds) have never stopped fighting to regain their
sovereignty and will never stop to do so till the day that their rights are
reinstated by will or war.
The Mongol
barbarian tribes, who repeatedly invaded the Asia Minor from the east, and who
even knocked the doors of Europe too, spread fear in the hearts of nations not
with bravery but with brutality and terror. They raised civilisations to the
ground, with no respect for the written word, but the amount of gold and silver
they collected. They threw the then civilisations hundreds of years back to dark
ages, but their actual reign did not last more than a
decade or so. They quickly disappeared to nowhere, but leaving their
fingerprints of destruction, and few hundreds of men behind for fort plantation.
This is more obvious in Iran and Afghanistan (Hazara tribes), but to a much
lesser extend in Kurdistan. The obvious reasons for those hasty withdrawals are,
that they were neither powerful empires seeking territorial expansion, nor did
they have a cohesive wide based tribal structure and unity that could afford
them lasting grip over conquered territories, to the contrary of the Turkish
claims of having had 16 empires stretching from the Mediterranean sea to the
Pacific Ocean (2) including many hundreds of millions of square kilometre land,
and many kings and emperors (2), the first such was the Great Huns Empire 204
BC-216 AD! While hieroglyphics and cuneiform scripts were used by the Anatolian
nations many millennia prior to advance of the Mongol Tatars to that region, the
earliest known example of writing in a Turkic language found can be dated to
730AD (3), after they were granted permission by the Safavids to enter Iran on
their conversion to Islam.
Also, the
Turks failed to enter the Asia Minor until 1071 AD, when the
Seljuk Turks (1040-1157 AD) start knocking on the eastern gates of the Byzantine
Empire. But the actual first opportunity come with the Turkic tribes Quara-
Qoyunlu and Aq-Qoyunlu. Having received the permission of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznawi,
the Seljuk Turks crossed the Oxus River and settled in northern Khorasan, that
they subsequently occupied completely during the reign of Sultan Masud, Mahmud's
son. In 1038 Toghril Beg was crowned as the Seljuk sultan in Neishabur. Who with
help from his family start into the business of occupation of the surrounding
areas. In 1041 - 2 he took Gorgan and Tabarestan from Anushirwan the Ziyarid; in
1042 - 3 he occupied the cities of Eraq - e - Ajam and made Rey the centre of
his government; in 443/1051 - 2 he took Isfahan and terminated the rule of the
Kakuyids in Eraq - e - Ajam; and in 1055 he brought the Buyid dynasty to an end
with the capture of al - Malik al - Rahim. In 1054 Toghril Beg (Tugrul Bey)
captured Azarbaijan and subjugated Amir Manur Wahsudan Rawwadi, and after taking
the cities of Ganja and Malazgerd and the region of Armenia, he reached the
borders of the Byzantine Empire (2). The Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad sanctioned
their leader, Tugrul Bey, with the title "King of the East and West" thus
designating the Seljuk warlord as his temporal deputy (2).
But the Seljuks under Tugrul and his successor, Alp Arslan, were
not content with controlling only their piece of the disintegrating Arab empire:
recent converts to Islam they saw themselves as the rightful heirs to the
lands conquered during and immediately after the time of the prophet Mohammed,
in particular, the heretical lands of the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, and Israel)
and Egypt, but not Anatolia. In order to secure their own flanks,
Isfahan entered into numerous negotiations with the Byzantine emperors of
Constantinople (2). But, it was first in 1402 the Aq-Qoyunlu Turkmens officially
acquired land in Amed (Diyarbakir) from Tamur-lang (Tamelane) (2).
The Turks
of today, who overwhelmingly are non-Mongols, but brutally and forcefully
turkified admixture of all the races and nations of the Asia Minor and Balkans,
with very similar Y chromosome genetic composition as the Kurds (3,4), despite
vigorously identifying themselves as Mongols (5)! The question is whether they
are indeed Mongols or systematically mongolised, brain washed, indoctrinated
with non-Turk hatred, even if their outlooks and genetic composition bear no
resemblance to the Mongols, is a question to be answered with scientific genetic
mtDNA studies. The history tells us that the Mongol-Turks were obviously singled
out by the sultan during the 17th century, when he fired
his cannons on their residences in Istanbul out of rage over
their interference in state affairs and his power.
Despite
their bloody history, and brutal assimilation policy towards the Kurds during
their 800 years occupation of and around Anatolia/Kurdistan, they have never
succeeded fully to subjugate the Kurds. The Ali Pasha of Buda indicated clearly
in his letter, that the Kurds were great defenders of the Empire, but they
wasted no opportunity to revolt against the sultan (6)!
Hakim
Idris, also known as Idris Bidlisi, a native of the ruling family from Bedlis
played a decisive role in 1514 Chaldiran war. His diplomatic activity
contributed to the Ottoman victory over the Safavids, which shaped the modern
border between Iran and Turkey. Since the majority of the Kurdish military units
sided with the Ottomans, Idris of Bitlis proposed a deal accepted by both the
Kurdish ruling families and the Ottoman Sultan Selim I. The real reason was that
Sultan "Selim realized that any effort to conquer them would have required
considerably more military force than he could commit". According to the
agreement signed in 1514, the twenty-three Kurdish rulers preserved various
degrees of their semi-autonomous status within the Akrad Beiligi (the
Kurdish Principality) and Kurt Hukumet (Kurdish Government). The Ottomans
promised not to interfere with the local affairs including the hereditary
policy. In exchange, the Kurds had to provide troops during the military
campaigns and pay tributes to the Sultan's finance office. This policy lasted
for 150 years, until the Ottoman military failure during the siege of Vienna in
(6).
Since
founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the successive Kemalist tyrants
adopted principle of denial of Kurdish existence, with brutal suppression of all
the Kurdish revolts with practically genocide like the two million killings of
the Armenians after the WWI, who she still deny to recognise, and the internal
displacement, deportations of thousands of the Kurds, and active encouragement
of the process of assimilation and Turkification of the Kurds are only examples
of this brutal repression. A Kurdish teacher wrote in early 1980s from Sweden
where he took refuge, that he used to charge school kids, 5 Turkish liras (app.
20 cents, if I remember correctly), for each Kurdish word they uttered at school
or in public. At my University years, one of my friends mentioned that their
gardener went visiting his family in north Kurdistan for a week, but did not
come back for 6 months, obviously he spoke Kurdish, and therefore, he was
imprisoned for 6 months as punishment! A policy, that some of the civilised
European countries still blinding for, in efforts to get the Turks onboard the
EU ship!!!
Turkey who
applied for EU membership over four decades ago, and in the past decade done
everything it could including using the Kurdish card and initiated a fake
democratisation process and facial reconstruction of her outdated judicial
system in a bid to get admission pass, hence financial support to revive her
decaying economy and military power!
While
Turkey has done some temporary facelift operations,
she is still aggressively fighting accepting the word Kurdish, not to mention
recognition and existence of the Kurdish identity in Turkey and also else where
beyond her borders. The revival of Turkish grey wolf activities and burning down
of the Kurdish cultural centres in U.K., Germany, and recently in Brussels are
only few examples (7) of state encouraged such an active agenda.
The recent
escalation of the past decade aggressive campaign against south Kurdistan’s bid
for the return of Kerkuk to Kurdistani administration, and perhaps her bid for
future independence, and the uncivilised rhetoric used by the Turkish PM Erdogan
and MF A. Gul against president Barzani, are confirmation of maintained status
quo in Turkish mentality towards the Kurdish nation, at least among the ruling
elite.
With such
an arrogance and non-diplomatic attitude toward the Kurd’s struggle for
recognition, existence, and bid for better life, they once again confirmed the
Turkish brutal mentality and incompatibility with democracy. The Turkish
mentality of denial is a product of 800 years or actually millennia of brutality
and terror; the famous China Wall is a living example of that brutality. It is
also continuation of their systematic oppression and assimilation policy in a
bid of nation making that doesn’t exist on the ground. By introducing a foreign
alphabet to their language that consist of at least 40-60% Kurdish and Albanian,
30% Arabic, and the remaining Ughur Turkic, and their membership of the NATO
military/political alliance, the Kemalist thought they have became Europeans,
but the simple reality on the ground, tells a different story. The map
introduced recently by Kenan Evren
(the former Turkish general, the leader of the coup d’etat on 12 September 1980
and the 7th president of Thrkey) (8), and
the fact that the regions of Turkey are, more or less, still dominated by the
original inhabitants, naturally, more people than ever are educated among these
nations, and the fact that globalisation and IT revolution have made the world a
global village, all these factors encourage and made it much easier for all
nations even if few hundred thousands to revive and demand their national
rights, the biggest and strongest are naturally the Kurds, who threaten the
legitimacy of the existence of a state known as Turkey!
The Great
British Empire after her over glorious 200 years of “conquer and rule” policy
has not only lost most of her colonies, but in actual fact is in the process of
internal disintegration that could become a reality if the Scottish and the
Welsh vote for independence, observe, democratically.
The
Ottomans lost all their colonies, but the Turks still believe that the Kurds,
Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Laz, Georgians, Serkis, Arabs, and many peoples
living within the borders of and under Turkish hegemony are to abandon their
roots and rights and accept the Kemalist found Turkish nationality!
In
conclusion: if Turkey is interested in her survival as a state, not necessarily
a unitary state she has a hard task a head;
She has
to abandon the Ostrich policy of denial.
She has
to abandon and actively work to revert the assimilation policies of the past.
She
must start a major campaign of reversing the brain washing policy imposed on
the poor Turkish citizens for the past 84 years.
She has
to march the road towards civilisation and democracy of western style through
Amed as she did 6-8 centuries ago, but this time without the use arms and
barbarism.
She has
to prepare her citizens for the change of mentality and the accompanied
perhaps individual identity crisis similar to the one the whole state is being
going through for the past two decades in silent.
She has
to abandon the mentality of inequality between nations,“ Proud is who call
himself a Turk”, and “One Turk is equal to the whole world”. Such slogans are
cheap instruments serve none, and are self-destructive. In today’s age any one
who can read and has eyes to see such as “Orient express” will be well aware
of the Turkish true face.
Last
but not least, revival of genuine respect for all nationalities and
recognition of Kurdistan as and the Kurds as equal and sovereign nation is the
only way forward for peace and stability that offer best opportunity for
survival and prosperity in that part of the world.
Ahmet Mesut Yilmaz seemed to have understood the reality way
before his counterpart Turkish politicians, and sincerely struggled for the
survival of identity “Turkey”, when he dared to say “The Road to EU Goes Through
Diyar Bakir”, may be not in the same context as this article, but share the same
vision.
